1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates, generally, to self-righting punching bag toys and more particularly relates to a self-righting toy having water as its counterweight means.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Free standing, self-righting punching bag toys are well known. Typically, the toys have the general shape of a bowling pin or an elongated egg and Bozo the Clown or a similar character are silk screened thereonto.
As such, the toys are not sculptured, i.e., they lack three dimensional parts such as hands, arms, distinct waistlines and the like.
The toys that were known heretofore employed a counterweight means such as sand to provide their self-righting function.
The present inventor is unaware of any earlier free standing punching bags that employ water as their self-righting means, but it is nonetheless presumed that water-weighted self-righting punching bags have been provided in the past.
Sand has provided the needed counterweight in the known earlier toys, as aforesaid, and countless sand-weighted punching bags have been sold.
The cost of the bags is quite high, however, because the sand must be added to the toy at the factory; shipping costs are thus high and this cost is passed on to the consumer.
The present inventor first substituted water for sand in a typical sand-counterweighted punching bag of the prior art to determine whether such a substitution would provide an operative toy. It was found that water was unacceptable as a replacement for sand because once the toy was knocked over, the enclosure containing the water would deform and as a result, little or no self-righting was possible.
In other words, the inventor's experiments found that the counterweight-containing enclosure would retain its original shape and thus remain operative at all times when sand was contained therein, because sand is not as fluid as water and the sand-containing enclosure does not appreciably deform when the toy is knocked into a horizontal position, and that a simple substitution of water for sand renders the device inoperative.
However, the possible use of water as a counterweight-providing means remained intriguing because if a water-reliant self-righting means could be found, then the cost of shipping the toys could be appreciably lowered because said toys could be shipped empty and the needed water could be added by the consumer.
The only obvious solution to the problem was to increase the rigidity of the enclosure so that it would retain its shape even when the toy was knocked over. Unfortunately, that solution would produce a toy that could not be shipped in a folded flat condition since the counterweight enclosure would then bulge upwardly and greatly increase the space required to ship the item. Thus, the gains in eliminating the weight of sand would be offset by the extra space required for the item.
The art is believed to contain no teachings or suggestions as to how water could be used in a self-righting toy having a flexible counterweight enclosure means.